If I had a dime for every person who thought having experience with EQ was the only or most important perspective or thing that mattered when it came to game discussions.
Well, I don't think people learn much about MMO by playing these non-MMO action games with watered down solo combat.
Calling games like Black Desert and Blade & Soul MMO is kind of a stretch, not much multiplayer going on in those games.
Even
having more experience to get to max level is difficulty. The reason
it is difficulty is because you either are going to have to spread that
time out over the course of a lot of years or you will have to sacrifice
your social life/health to get leveled up quickly before others do. To
find a person who is competitive enough to sacrifice their health in
order to level up quickly is not easy feat. They would also have to
have a lot of determination. This is basically the type of person who
runs a marathon. I'm not saying it's a wise decision, but it's not easy
to make it through unless you spread it out or cheat by using multiple
people to level the character.
Did you miss the post where this was explained? The three things commonly called difficulty are:
Time consumption
Uncontrollable things
Skill challenges
As I've explained multiple times, if you want to call time consumption "difficulty", that's fine.
But when it comes to the most common way players have fun in games, skill challenges are patterns and the other two things aren't.
What exactly is a skill challenge? All you have said is depth which is in itself not very telling. How can modern MMORPG be challenging if your aren't challenged?
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
Even
having more experience to get to max level is difficulty. The reason
it is difficulty is because you either are going to have to spread that
time out over the course of a lot of years or you will have to sacrifice
your social life/health to get leveled up quickly before others do. To
find a person who is competitive enough to sacrifice their health in
order to level up quickly is not easy feat. They would also have to
have a lot of determination. This is basically the type of person who
runs a marathon. I'm not saying it's a wise decision, but it's not easy
to make it through unless you spread it out or cheat by using multiple
people to level the character.
Did you miss the post where this was explained? The three things commonly called difficulty are:
Time consumption
Uncontrollable things
Skill challenges
As I've explained multiple times, if you want to call time consumption "difficulty", that's fine.
But when it comes to the most common way players have fun in games, skill challenges are patterns and the other two things aren't.
What exactly is a skill challenge? All you have said is depth which is in itself not very telling. How can modern MMORPG be challenging if your aren't challenged?
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
How do you not know what "skill challenges" is referring to? Obviously it would be a challenge that needs an actual skill to be overcome. IS patience a skill... OR... is it a trait one possesses? Time consumption is a matter of patience, the only thing that will beat a person in such a situation, is a lack of patience. Being patient can be difficult, if that's what you deem as difficulty in a game, it must be a boring ass game don't ya think?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If I had a dime for every person who said they played EQ, but either didn't, or only played for like 2 years...
He dodged that specific type of claim at least, substituted it with a vague "older games" instead.
Also this quote of Axe's...
"By contrast, the player can fearlessly and completely immerse themselves in challenging situations in a light-penalty game -- and mastering those challenging situations is the most common way games are fun to players."
I would like to point out this is not congruent with any published statistics people can look up about raid numbers in games or difficulty achievements.
And for a bit of irony this comment of his.
"Are you trying to distract with non-combat and atypical rotations because you understand that sticking with the standard rotation will result in you looking very obviously wrong?"
This is what axe said just following a diatribe about how the warlock is varied in it's tactics when forced into an atypical rotation by an outside event. Basically, slamming the thing he just spent two big paragraphs on.
I can understand if the statement were "I prefer the mechanic of combat rotations and am comfortable with it's implementation in WoW and the way it balances difficulty types works well for me.", but the claim is instead a constant pull for presenting an opinion on content type as an an objective value and that is very simply dishonesty.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
If I had a dime for every person who said they played EQ, but either didn't, or only played for like 2 years...
He dodged that specific type of claim at least, substituted it with a vague "older games" instead.
Also this quote of Axe's...
"By contrast, the player can fearlessly and completely immerse themselves in challenging situations in a light-penalty game -- and mastering those challenging situations is the most common way games are fun to players."
I would like to point out this is not congruent with any published statistics people can look up about raid numbers in games or difficulty achievements.
And for a bit of irony this comment of his.
"Are you trying to distract with non-combat and atypical rotations because you understand that sticking with the standard rotation will result in you looking very obviously wrong?"
This is what axe said just following a diatribe about how the warlock is varied in it's tactics when forced into an atypical rotation by an outside event. Basically, slamming the thing he just spent two big paragraphs on.
I can understand if the statement were "I prefer the mechanic of combat rotations and am comfortable with it's implementation in WoW and the way it balances difficulty types works well for me.", but the claim is instead a constant pull for presenting an opinion on content type as an an objective value and that is very simply dishonesty.
Combat rotations are what make gold botters possible.
Combat rotations are what make gold botters possible.
On a technical level pretty much all games have combat rotations. In the long run there is a mechanically most optimized way to use a system, and players are going to work any game over as a collective until they find it.
How user-involved the gameplay is with that rotation though can have a great degree of impact on the performance of automated systems, especially if the game is designed with the idea of interrupts and difficulty curves that err on the side of risky so that running a bot becomes somewhat more dangerous than feasible.
This would be a point too of why things like AI could do with considerable improvement. If player activities were tracked by the servers better and that data was used to initiate events around the player, it would be a means to provide more varied experiences to players regardless of their locale in-game and also give a means to interrupt automated or monotonous activity in users.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Combat rotations are what make gold botters possible.
On a technical level pretty much all games have combat rotations. In the long run there is a mechanically most optimized way to use a system, and players are going to work any game over as a collective until they find it.
How user-involved the gameplay is with that rotation though can have a great degree of impact on the performance of automated systems, especially if the game is designed with the idea of interrupts and difficulty curves that err on the side of risky so that running a bot becomes somewhat more dangerous than feasible.
This would be a point too of why things like AI could do with considerable improvement. If player activities were tracked by the servers better and that data was used to initiate events around the player, it would be a means to provide more varied experiences to players regardless of their locale in-game and also give a means to interrupt automated or monotonous activity in users.
You're thinking of tracking characters and then dropping unusual spawns on them? That would seem to create some problems when players group. But I guess that can easily be fixed.
I'd like to see AI on MOBs built to create choices on them as they perceive events around them. Choices with random factors included, biased by situations as they unfold. But random enough that they can either do the unexpected or seemingly screw up. At the same time give them allies and powers to draw them from elsewhere. This could be "calling" more MOBs from nearby (or deeper in a dungeon), gates to bring in allies from afar, whatever based on the same sorts of abilities players have (spells and items). Add in social MOBs tactical set ups that draw from the map, the same sorts of things players might do (ambushes, end runs, etc.). This would be AI built into the map that the MOBs can pick up. Add in "wandering MOBs" to make the world feel more alive. And compute out MOB to MOB reactions if they meet outside of player encounters. They could join together or fight for territorial control, or even hunt another MOB for food. Players could run into a MOB to MOB encounter while it's happening and things could get interesting.
Well, I don't think people learn much about MMO by playing these non-MMO action games with watered down solo combat.
Even if we assumed that was a valid statement, what relevance would it have? I played ~10 early MMORPGs from AC to Ragnarok.
I've often left it open that "unless EQ was considerably different from other early MMORPGs, then [assumptions drawn from other same-era games]"
It's an open statement which begs a "No, actually EQ was critically different from all other early MMORPGs in this way" but so far even posters who are very inclined to disagree with everything I say don't touch that one.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Man you don't have to be so rude. I'd add 1 to your list, carrying other players (or it's a combination of all 3)
Do you have another suggestion for how he could learn these concepts? I'm polite in the vast majority of posts. In my experience politely repeating things for the 4th+ time doesn't stop someone from ignoring what's being said.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Combat rotations are what make gold botters possible.
On a technical level pretty much all games have combat rotations. In the long run there is a mechanically most optimized way to use a system, and players are going to work any game over as a collective until they find it.
Players could run into a MOB to MOB encounter while it's happening and things could get interesting.
So, basically, in modern MMO games, mobs have 1/8th of your health, do 1/8th of your damage, and stand still so you can hit them. Winning all the time is.. i guess.. fun, but not necessarily rewarding. Beating a boss on your first encounter, that everyone else beat on their first encounter, is quite forgettable. Attempting a boss 11 times and finally downing him feels super rewarding.
It would be nice to play a game where the mobs you're fighting actually want to live, and you have to employ pvp level skills to kill them. The average player doesn't want to let you finish them and will use all means necessary to escape. Chasing down mobs would suck, so you'd learn how to butter them up and burst at the end like in a pvp engagement. (from a dps perspective)
You can get to max level on 90% of new mmo games by rolling your face around on your keyboard.
Even
having more experience to get to max level is difficulty. The reason
it is difficulty is because you either are going to have to spread that
time out over the course of a lot of years or you will have to sacrifice
your social life/health to get leveled up quickly before others do. To
find a person who is competitive enough to sacrifice their health in
order to level up quickly is not easy feat. They would also have to
have a lot of determination. This is basically the type of person who
runs a marathon. I'm not saying it's a wise decision, but it's not easy
to make it through unless you spread it out or cheat by using multiple
people to level the character.
Did you miss the post where this was explained? The three things commonly called difficulty are:
Time consumption
Uncontrollable things
Skill challenges
As I've explained multiple times, if you want to call time consumption "difficulty", that's fine.
But when it comes to the most common way players have fun in games, skill challenges are patterns and the other two things aren't.
What exactly is a skill challenge? All you have said is depth which is in itself not very telling. How can modern MMORPG be challenging if your aren't challenged?
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
How do you not know what "skill challenges" is referring to? Obviously it would be a challenge that needs an actual skill to be overcome. IS patience a skill... OR... is it a trait one possesses? Time consumption is a matter of patience, the only thing that will beat a person in such a situation, is a lack of patience. Being patient can be difficult, if that's what you deem as difficulty in a game, it must be a boring ass game don't ya think?
I can understand that but in the context of MMORPG it makes little sense. What skill challenge is he talking about if you're not challenged by modern MMORPG content except the top 1% that most never play. Isn't how much you're challenged directly related to difficulty?
I have leveled most games without fear of losing spamming powers and barely learning how to play my character before I quit in boredom. That's why I am trying to find this depth.
Where is the advanced AI? Main differences I have seen is better pathfinding and not following forever. Outside of that most NPCs don't help each other. They don't flee when losing or flee for help. Most of the they just stand around to be DPS by random players to fill quest quota. I guess there is special scripting for some but eh the average NPC is just as dumb or dumber.
Depth is questionable as well. The average MMORPG you don't really do anything but DPS spam. You don't pull, control, heal and etc. Not saying the trinity is required. Just that I don't see the special depth that people are talking about. Maybe end game it changes. I bore of the tedious quest, unchallening content, lack of player interdependency and etc. before I get there.
I'd just like to say I played EQ and Vanilla WoW heavily. I'm had some difficulty in WoW, but I was able to complete all the content. I remember having a fair amount of difficulty completing scholomance, strathlehome, blackrock depths, and molten core. You would have to consider I only had been able to beat a few dungeons in EQ and I was over leveled for those dungeons. I also had tried, but failed to complete any raids in EQ. Having experienced both I would say EQ was the more difficult easily. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy WoW. I think that's why a lot of people jumped ship. It was a game where anyone could complete the content. Only a few elite were able to complete the more difficult content in EQ. I was not one of those elite. I spent most of my time wandering around different areas of the outside world kiting mobs and occasionally grouping with people I came across. I would sometimes try to go into a dungeon that was around 10 to 30 levels below me and still died in many cases.
I don't really want to go over the points I made earlier in that long post that Axe appears to have skipped over most of it. I brought up the social aspect of EQ because it was a huge part of it and competing in game as I mentioned. It made things more difficult and I explained why.
In terms of kiting I again would reiterate that you had to use first person. Third person was pretty much unusable. When you consider how EQ zones were setup the mobs would wander all over the place and aggro like crazy. You could easily get into trouble quickly while trying to kite something around and because you are in first person you would have to turn around to see if something was right behind you. Unfortunately turning around could lead to being hit and being hit would usually lead to dying. As a bard trying to kite multiple mobs while twisting songs was a difficult task. You were moving non stop and were not sure where the mobs were located behind you. The mobs had to be in a certain range for the songs to effect them. Generally you didn't snare the mobs because you didn't want them to slow down for a few seconds. You wanted to keep them running at the same speed. Otherwise it might throw you off in terms of getting too far ahead of the mob. Other kiting classes had similar issues though not as complex. I can say EQ had far more tactics that could be employed by solo or duo and it came down to the game mechanics and class abilities.
I noticed that all my comments on dungeons and how they were designed were ignored. Having things like icy bridges to navigate large groups across, gaps to jump over, fake floor traps, fake walls, etc. Keeping your group buffed with water breathing and navigating them through an underwater dungeon where it's difficult to sees and fight is also more challenging then what I've seen in WoW dungeons.
What is really comes down to is that you just had to make a lot more decisions and move around a lot more depending on what was going on. There was a lot more constantly being on the move and reacting to different situations. WoW was the easy version of EQ that was for people like myself who couldn't quite hack it in the more difficult EQ content, but could easily do WoW content.
What exactly is a skill challenge? All you have said is depth which is in itself not very telling. How can modern MMORPG be challenging if your aren't challenged?
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
Are you suggesting you never ever die in any modern MMORPGs? Or would you admit that the times you died were the result of bad decisions? (And bad decisions are a low amount of skill, which means you failed a skill challenge.)
My comment on death was about how players auto-adjust...
In a FPS, player accuracy is just like death in MMORPGs. It auto-adjusts.
Give a player an extremely accurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively longer ranges. As a result, they'll miss more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
Give a player an inaccurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively shorter ranges. As a result, they'll hit more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
This means that even though the objective stats of these guns are different (one is way more accurate), the subjective experience of using them is very similar -- possibly the same.
Exact same thing happens with deaths in games; players will push themselves into harder and harder situations and as a result their subjectively experienced death rate will normalize.
The only time this isn't true is if you're playing badly (by not dynamically adjusting your playstyle to the conditions you face) or if you're faced with a harsher punishment (in which case your auto-adjusting would deliberately seek to reduce your deaths.) This is why in modern light-punishment games if you claim not to ever die in modern MMORPGs it just means you're playing them way too cautiously.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What exactly is a skill challenge? All you have said is depth which is in itself not very telling. How can modern MMORPG be challenging if your aren't challenged?
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
Are you suggesting you never ever die in any modern MMORPGs? Or would you admit that the times you died were the result of bad decisions? (And bad decisions are a low amount of skill, which means you failed a skill challenge.)
My comment on death was about how players auto-adjust...
In a FPS, player accuracy is just like death in MMORPGs. It auto-adjusts.
Give a player an extremely accurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively longer ranges. As a result, they'll miss more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
Give a player an inaccurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively shorter ranges. As a result, they'll hit more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
This means that even though the objective stats of these guns are different (one is way more accurate), the subjective experience of using them is very similar -- possibly the same.
Exact same thing happens with deaths in games; players will push themselves into harder and harder situations and as a result their subjectively experienced death rate will normalize.
The only time this isn't true is if you're playing badly (by not dynamically adjusting your playstyle to the conditions you face) or if you're faced with a harsher punishment (in which case your auto-adjusting would deliberately seek to reduce your deaths.) This is why in modern light-punishment games if you claim not to ever die in modern MMORPGs it just means you're playing them way too cautiously.
Playing too cautiously? I play them how their designed on the carefully jotted plan the developers give you to advance as fast as possible. Generally you're doing quest in your quest range or they're not possible through quest giver not giving or NPCs are basically immune to your attacks.
The only game I can say that I experienced death at any normal rate was ESO.
What exactly is a skill challenge? All you have said is depth which is in itself not very telling. How can modern MMORPG be challenging if your aren't challenged?
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
Are you suggesting you never ever die in any modern MMORPGs? Or would you admit that the times you died were the result of bad decisions? (And bad decisions are a low amount of skill, which means you failed a skill challenge.)
My comment on death was about how players auto-adjust...
In a FPS, player accuracy is just like death in MMORPGs. It auto-adjusts.
Give a player an extremely accurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively longer ranges. As a result, they'll miss more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
Give a player an inaccurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively shorter ranges. As a result, they'll hit more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
This means that even though the objective stats of these guns are different (one is way more accurate), the subjective experience of using them is very similar -- possibly the same.
Exact same thing happens with deaths in games; players will push themselves into harder and harder situations and as a result their subjectively experienced death rate will normalize.
The only time this isn't true is if you're playing badly (by not dynamically adjusting your playstyle to the conditions you face) or if you're faced with a harsher punishment (in which case your auto-adjusting would deliberately seek to reduce your deaths.) This is why in modern light-punishment games if you claim not to ever die in modern MMORPGs it just means you're playing them way too cautiously.
Playing too cautiously? I play them how their designed on the carefully jotted plan the developers give you to advance as fast as possible. Generally you're doing quest in your quest range or they're not possible through quest giver not giving or NPCs are basically immune to your attacks.
The only game I can say that I experienced death at any normal rate was ESO.
Open world group and elite mobs have mostly been removed from games in order to make things easier. We started out with all mobs being what is considered elite in MMOs. Then we moved to having a mix of solo and group mobs with labels to tell you if they are elite or not. Now things are sectioned of into all solo mobs (open world instances/phases), all group mobs in group instances, all raid mobs in raid instances. It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow.
Open world group and elite mobs have mostly been removed from games in order to make things easier. We started out with all mobs being what is considered elite in MMOs. Then we moved to having a mix of solo and group mobs with labels to tell you if they are elite or not. Now things are sectioned of into all solo mobs (open world instances/phases), all group mobs in group instances, all raid mobs in raid instances. It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow.
I wouldn't say that all NPCs were considered elite. I would say in Everquest, DAoC and games like that maybe. You generally were 1 vs. 1 or group vs. 1 to several with some classes able to take on multiple NPCs. NPCs were not all created equal no matter what level they were. Other games were more unpredictable because they weren't neatly balanced like AC and some games were easy like maybe UOs PvE.
In modern MMO you pretty much follow the path unless you have some overpowered character or a group. You either fight a bunch of trash or trash and tough guy or a real tough guy that doesn't come close to the chosen one (you). I found even with never speaking bad group nobody really dies. You get loot every level or so, your character choices generally make you unable to gimp and everything is basically balanced in your favor level 1-whatever.
Open world group and elite mobs have mostly been removed from games in order to make things easier. We started out with all mobs being what is considered elite in MMOs. Then we moved to having a mix of solo and group mobs with labels to tell you if they are elite or not. Now things are sectioned of into all solo mobs (open world instances/phases), all group mobs in group instances, all raid mobs in raid instances. It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow.
I wouldn't say that all NPCs were considered elite. I would say in Everquest, DAoC and games like that maybe. You generally were 1 vs. 1 or group vs. 1 to several with some classes able to take on multiple NPCs. NPCs were not all created equal no matter what level they were. Other games were more unpredictable because they weren't neatly balanced like AC and some games were easy like maybe UOs PvE.
In modern MMO you pretty much follow the path unless you have some overpowered character or a group. You either fight a bunch of trash or trash and tough guy or a real tough guy that doesn't come close to the chosen one (you). I found even with never speaking bad group nobody really dies. You get loot every level or so, your character choices generally make you unable to gimp and everything is basically balanced in your favor level 1-whatever.
It's true that some mobs were more difficult than others in older games, but there was no segregation of mobs balanced around a certain combat style.
When I played WoW in Vanilla there was a large mixture of solo mobs and elite mobs in the in the open world area. I would often take a group quest and figure out a way to complete said quest in either solo or duo with another person who needed to complete the quest.
I've gone back to WoW recently and all open world content seemed to be solo mobs and solo quests now.
I do agree that quests and directed path makes it more difficult to challenge yourself though.
It's an open statement which begs a "No, actually EQ was critically different from all other early MMORPGs in this way" but so far even posters who are very inclined to disagree with everything I say don't touch that one.
Or you have a very narrow window of what you choose to acknowledge, seeing as such a post has already been made.
And this...
"Exact same thing happens with deaths in games; players will push themselves into harder and harder situations and as a result their subjectively experienced death rate will normalize."
That is just repetition of something that is already known to be false. Every metric you can look up about raid statistics, player achievements, and difficulty rankings shows that the players who vie for constantly harder situations and sit on the cusp of risk vs reward are a finite number of the player base. Most want a game to be a bit challenging, but comfortable foremost. When introducing rewards then the adage of hiring a lazy man comes to mind, because ultimately the user base is going to metagame and seek the easiest route to obtaining the rewards.
Sometimes the meta isn't really even needed any more, as the game basically is paced so that the challenge is never particularly heavy.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
You're thinking of tracking characters and then dropping unusual spawns on them? That would seem to create some problems when players group. But I guess that can easily be fixed.
I was thinking of it in a more extended premise than just mobs. Like being able to create randomized story events and activities seeded around players (not directly on them) so that at any given moment they can wander into something new to do.
In the case of mobs themselves, this would mostly just be context sensitive spawning. It'd be tracking what types of units are prevalent in the area and any current territory maps and seed in enemy types that match up as patrols, camps, themed traps/ambushes, etc that can flesh out an area and make it more lively/populated and dynamic feeling than a bunch of static spawns.
As far as breaking botters, the point there would be to have flags on certain player behaviors such as unit grinding so that if a player is doing nothing but killing mobs for an abnormally long time, then the system can automatically scale or alter the spawns in the area to break the ability for that player to continue the same task unabated. It's a method that shouldn't impact legitimate players as they are more likely seeking the variety that's being offered.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Playing too cautiously? I play them how their designed on the carefully jotted plan the developers give you to advance as fast as possible. Generally you're doing quest in your quest range or they're not possible through quest giver not giving or NPCs are basically immune to your attacks.
The only game I can say that I experienced death at any normal rate was ESO.
So then it sounds like we've found the main reason you think newer MMORPGs are too easy: you play them too slowly/cautiously.
If you drive 25mph on a highway with a 70mph speed limit, don't blame the highway that your trip is too slow. It's not the highway's fault.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Playing too cautiously? I play them how their designed on the carefully jotted plan the developers give you to advance as fast as possible. Generally you're doing quest in your quest range or they're not possible through quest giver not giving or NPCs are basically immune to your attacks.
The only game I can say that I experienced death at any normal rate was ESO.
So then it sounds like we've found the main reason you think newer MMORPGs are too easy: you play them too slowly/cautiously.
If you drive 25mph on a highway with a 70mph speed limit, don't blame the highway that your trip is too slow. It's not the highway's fault.
More like driving 25 in a 25mph zone and your saying I need to drive 75mph to be challenged.
Open world group and elite mobs have mostly been removed from games in order to make things easier. We started out with all mobs being what is considered elite in MMOs. Then we moved to having a mix of solo and group mobs with labels to tell you if they are elite or not. Now things are sectioned of into all solo mobs (open world instances/phases), all group mobs in group instances, all raid mobs in raid instances. It's pretty difficult to deviate from the path the developer set for players to follow.
Difficulty is experienced subjectively by individuals.
A common mistake is assuming that a 50k hp mob designed to be fought by 5 players is actually harder than a 10k mob designed to be fought by one player. It's not. Each player still individually only has to contribute 10k damage to the fight over a certain period of time to win.
Deliberately fighting those elites solo doesn't make things harder either -- at least not in a way you couldn't achieve in modern MMORPGs by entering dungeons solo.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Combat rotations are what make gold botters possible.
On a technical level pretty much all games have combat rotations. In the long run there is a mechanically most optimized way to use a system, and players are going to work any game over as a collective until they find it.
Players could run into a MOB to MOB encounter while it's happening and things could get interesting.
So, basically, in modern MMO games, mobs have 1/8th of your health, do 1/8th of your damage, and stand still so you can hit them. Winning all the time is.. i guess.. fun, but not necessarily rewarding. Beating a boss on your first encounter, that everyone else beat on their first encounter, is quite forgettable. Attempting a boss 11 times and finally downing him feels super rewarding.
It would be nice to play a game where the mobs you're fighting actually want to live, and you have to employ pvp level skills to kill them. The average player doesn't want to let you finish them and will use all means necessary to escape. Chasing down mobs would suck, so you'd learn how to butter them up and burst at the end like in a pvp engagement. (from a dps perspective)
You can get to max level on 90% of new mmo games by rolling your face around on your keyboard.
The thing I'd add here is that if beating that Boss the 11th time gives you a sure fire way of beating it every time thereafter because it's static, that's bad too.
For me, I want to see games get away from simply respawning the same boss in the same place to be beaten in the same way. That's why I listed a system where changes come into play constantly. And I do believe that a dead Boss should stay dead. Let another MOB Boss move in to take it's place. Another thing the system I listed can do.
You're thinking of tracking characters and then dropping unusual spawns on them? That would seem to create some problems when players group. But I guess that can easily be fixed.
I was thinking of it in a more extended premise than just mobs. Like being able to create randomized story events and activities seeded around players (not directly on them) so that at any given moment they can wander into something new to do. In the case of mobs themselves, this would mostly just be context sensitive spawning. It'd be tracking what types of units are prevalent in the area and any current territory maps and seed in enemy types that match up as patrols, camps, themed traps/ambushes, etc that can flesh out an area and make it more lively/populated and dynamic feeling than a bunch of static spawns.
As far as breaking botters, the point there would be to have flags on certain player behaviors such as unit grinding so that if a player is doing nothing but killing mobs for an abnormally long time, then the system can automatically scale or alter the spawns in the area to break the ability for that player to continue the same task unabated. It's a method that shouldn't impact legitimate players as they are more likely seeking the variety that's being offered.
So, random events (not just spawns)? That's a great idea. Not only could you track players and base them on what they've been doing (this could also add to what they are up too, not just change them up), you could use the same system to plop random events down that stay there until any player or group discovers them. And you could scale such things to the group too. You'd still have an issue with other players showing up. But this is another place where I see Sandbox games with low power gaps as a plus. I'm not concerned if player group A meets a random encounter and because player group B happens to show up and together they have an easy time of it. New friends can be made that way, new stories that you remember and tell, etc. But when player group B is level 50 to your level 10 in typical MMO fashion, well, that's another story that's not nearly as memorable in a good way.
For botters, yeah, I see it. This would be an important aspect. But I think there needs more done too. Lets face it, it's nearly impossible to completely stop a really good bot programmer. But what you can do is reduce it's benefits. And I think it's possible to reduce those benefits enough that it doesn't matter all that much. Randomization is a big part of that, in my mind. Your idea here is another, as I've thought of "random spawns" plenty, but "random events" is even better because it adds complexity that's better overcome by a thinking player.
So a quest, what's a quest... ? When your mom asks you to take out the trash... is that a quest?
Ok back on topic here, the trophy thing. So, back when MMOs (like year 96-04) were a 'new' thing. There were people who played them and spent a crapload of time, they practiced constantly and spent all their time and effort improving their character and their knowledge of the game mechanics to be better at playing their character.
So, part of making your character good is that cool weapon that you saw some high level dude running around with.
Your immediate reaction: Wow what did you kill to get that epic item???? OR Wow where can I pick up that quest???
You see what I'm getting at yet?
You used to hunt really really challenging monsters that could actually beat you. You actually got beat a lot. Sometimes you went with a friend (or 3) and sometimes you went solo, because you didn't want to share the loot. (Yes only 1 person could actually get it not all 4 of you *GASP*).
So losing isn't fun, death penalties aren't fun, challenges aren't fun (especially if you have no clue how to play your character). So questing got completely hijacked.
A quest used to be a really really really long series of things that took you throughout the game world and introduced you to new places and was more of a rite-of-passage you had to complete before gaining access to some content. It was more of a rare barrier that you had to go through and essentially prove that you had mastered the mechanics of your character. By that, I mean, a lot of people would pick up the quest, and button mashing wouldn't cut it, and they actually had to learn how to use their weapon / skills / spells with some sort of intelligent strategy one way or another.
Usually the reward for these quests was some sort of access or content, not some weapon or money reward.
You actually had to farm your own money, you know like do things to earn money, like picking up 4 apples didn't get you 500$ like in some games. You could totally mine rocks or pick flowers and make potions or armor and get money. You could totally slay orcs or goblins and get their money. You definitely didn't get all your money from "quests".
I keep putting "quests" in quotations because a chore isn't really even a quest... it's a chore. I don't go on my computer to do someone else's chores. I want to find a pit of monsters and slaughter them and take their money. If the game allows, I want to slaughter you and take your money too.
So everybody gets a trophy. All that cool gear the guy is wearing? Odds are he got it all these days by clicking the buckets with the sparkles over them and then clicking the guy with some sort of question mark over his head. If he got engaged in pvp he'd totally freeze up or soil himself. The reason people are so scared to pvp is because the game delivers them to max level on a high speed fart-cloud and they have this cool looking champion with no idea how to actually utilize it's mechanics. They know if they button mash the monster will die. Players don't go down like that.
PvP isn't so much a murderous psychopathic experience like you quest junkies think it is. It's our way of putting our knowledge of our character and game mechanic against your knowledge of yours. The avoidance of PvP simply tells me you probably aren't very good at it, no offense. Odds are, you're really good at doing the NPC's chores. You got all that amazing looking gear and the pokemon following you around from doing their chores.
So, you got a trophy, I got mine, your trophy is the "quest" trophy, everyone can get that trophy. The rewards for the hard earned grind / experience / mechanics / pvp have been nerfed into oblivion to make it more fair for the "quest" people. Enjoy your "quest" loot.
There's no more games for us anymore, everything is being made for you, I guess that quest and pokemon follower model works better with item malls. Right now, somewhere, a developer is almost as bored typing out quest dialog as I am clicking next past it as fast as I can. I wish they would just improve the combat and create an alternate leveling path for people like me.
I understand where you are coming from. I think we may see a bit of resurgence in this type of game play soon. Games like Eq, Some of WoW, games like that. You could gain access to a dungeon in Eq that would allow you a chance after running thru with raid to maybe get a really fun item that granted a special ability top hat no other item in the game has. I can see a return in the form of Project Gorgon, Pathfinder....there is still hope for a return to this sort of thing. Can't forget the feeling of completing epic quest for epic weapon in Eq....big status in game for those that accomplished that.
Comments
Calling games like Black Desert and Blade & Soul MMO is kind of a stretch, not much multiplayer going on in those games.
You said the amount of time you die isn't challenge which is a head scratcher. Yes you can be cheesed and have a cheap deaths. But how can combat be challenging if you have little chance of defeat? That's 90% of modern MMORPG. Spell rotations are not really challenge. It's subjective and can be tedium when your simply adding redundant attacks just to say your doing something.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Also this quote of Axe's...
"By contrast, the player can fearlessly and completely immerse themselves in challenging situations in a light-penalty game -- and mastering those challenging situations is the most common way games are fun to players."
I would like to point out this is not congruent with any published statistics people can look up about raid numbers in games or difficulty achievements.
And for a bit of irony this comment of his.
"Are you trying to distract with non-combat and atypical rotations because you understand that sticking with the standard rotation will result in you looking very obviously wrong?"
This is what axe said just following a diatribe about how the warlock is varied in it's tactics when forced into an atypical rotation by an outside event. Basically, slamming the thing he just spent two big paragraphs on.
I can understand if the statement were "I prefer the mechanic of combat rotations and am comfortable with it's implementation in WoW and the way it balances difficulty types works well for me.", but the claim is instead a constant pull for presenting an opinion on content type as an an objective value and that is very simply dishonesty.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
How user-involved the gameplay is with that rotation though can have a great degree of impact on the performance of automated systems, especially if the game is designed with the idea of interrupts and difficulty curves that err on the side of risky so that running a bot becomes somewhat more dangerous than feasible.
This would be a point too of why things like AI could do with considerable improvement. If player activities were tracked by the servers better and that data was used to initiate events around the player, it would be a means to provide more varied experiences to players regardless of their locale in-game and also give a means to interrupt automated or monotonous activity in users.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
That would seem to create some problems when players group. But I guess that can easily be fixed.
I'd like to see AI on MOBs built to create choices on them as they perceive events around them. Choices with random factors included, biased by situations as they unfold. But random enough that they can either do the unexpected or seemingly screw up.
At the same time give them allies and powers to draw them from elsewhere. This could be "calling" more MOBs from nearby (or deeper in a dungeon), gates to bring in allies from afar, whatever based on the same sorts of abilities players have (spells and items).
Add in social MOBs tactical set ups that draw from the map, the same sorts of things players might do (ambushes, end runs, etc.). This would be AI built into the map that the MOBs can pick up.
Add in "wandering MOBs" to make the world feel more alive. And compute out MOB to MOB reactions if they meet outside of player encounters. They could join together or fight for territorial control, or even hunt another MOB for food.
Players could run into a MOB to MOB encounter while it's happening and things could get interesting.
Once upon a time....
I've often left it open that "unless EQ was considerably different from other early MMORPGs, then [assumptions drawn from other same-era games]"
It's an open statement which begs a "No, actually EQ was critically different from all other early MMORPGs in this way" but so far even posters who are very inclined to disagree with everything I say don't touch that one.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Do you have another suggestion for how he could learn these concepts? I'm polite in the vast majority of posts. In my experience politely repeating things for the 4th+ time doesn't stop someone from ignoring what's being said.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So, basically, in modern MMO games, mobs have 1/8th of your health, do 1/8th of your damage, and stand still so you can hit them. Winning all the time is.. i guess.. fun, but not necessarily rewarding. Beating a boss on your first encounter, that everyone else beat on their first encounter, is quite forgettable. Attempting a boss 11 times and finally downing him feels super rewarding.
It would be nice to play a game where the mobs you're fighting actually want to live, and you have to employ pvp level skills to kill them. The average player doesn't want to let you finish them and will use all means necessary to escape. Chasing down mobs would suck, so you'd learn how to butter them up and burst at the end like in a pvp engagement. (from a dps perspective)
You can get to max level on 90% of new mmo games by rolling your face around on your keyboard.
I have leveled most games without fear of losing spamming powers and barely learning how to play my character before I quit in boredom. That's why I am trying to find this depth.
Where is the advanced AI? Main differences I have seen is better pathfinding and not following forever. Outside of that most NPCs don't help each other. They don't flee when losing or flee for help. Most of the they just stand around to be DPS by random players to fill quest quota. I guess there is special scripting for some but eh the average NPC is just as dumb or dumber.
Depth is questionable as well. The average MMORPG you don't really do anything but DPS spam. You don't pull, control, heal and etc. Not saying the trinity is required. Just that I don't see the special depth that people are talking about. Maybe end game it changes. I bore of the tedious quest, unchallening content, lack of player interdependency and etc. before I get there.
I don't really want to go over the points I made earlier in that long post that Axe appears to have skipped over most of it. I brought up the social aspect of EQ because it was a huge part of it and competing in game as I mentioned. It made things more difficult and I explained why.
In terms of kiting I again would reiterate that you had to use first person. Third person was pretty much unusable. When you consider how EQ zones were setup the mobs would wander all over the place and aggro like crazy. You could easily get into trouble quickly while trying to kite something around and because you are in first person you would have to turn around to see if something was right behind you. Unfortunately turning around could lead to being hit and being hit would usually lead to dying. As a bard trying to kite multiple mobs while twisting songs was a difficult task. You were moving non stop and were not sure where the mobs were located behind you. The mobs had to be in a certain range for the songs to effect them. Generally you didn't snare the mobs because you didn't want them to slow down for a few seconds. You wanted to keep them running at the same speed. Otherwise it might throw you off in terms of getting too far ahead of the mob. Other kiting classes had similar issues though not as complex. I can say EQ had far more tactics that could be employed by solo or duo and it came down to the game mechanics and class abilities.
I noticed that all my comments on dungeons and how they were designed were ignored. Having things like icy bridges to navigate large groups across, gaps to jump over, fake floor traps, fake walls, etc. Keeping your group buffed with water breathing and navigating them through an underwater dungeon where it's difficult to sees and fight is also more challenging then what I've seen in WoW dungeons.
What is really comes down to is that you just had to make a lot more decisions and move around a lot more depending on what was going on. There was a lot more constantly being on the move and reacting to different situations. WoW was the easy version of EQ that was for people like myself who couldn't quite hack it in the more difficult EQ content, but could easily do WoW content.
My comment on death was about how players auto-adjust...
- In a FPS, player accuracy is just like death in MMORPGs. It auto-adjusts.
- Give a player an extremely accurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively longer ranges. As a result, they'll miss more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
- Give a player an inaccurate gun -> they'll use it at progressively shorter ranges. As a result, they'll hit more shots and the experienced accuracy will be normalized.
- This means that even though the objective stats of these guns are different (one is way more accurate), the subjective experience of using them is very similar -- possibly the same.
Exact same thing happens with deaths in games; players will push themselves into harder and harder situations and as a result their subjectively experienced death rate will normalize.The only time this isn't true is if you're playing badly (by not dynamically adjusting your playstyle to the conditions you face) or if you're faced with a harsher punishment (in which case your auto-adjusting would deliberately seek to reduce your deaths.) This is why in modern light-punishment games if you claim not to ever die in modern MMORPGs it just means you're playing them way too cautiously.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The only game I can say that I experienced death at any normal rate was ESO.
In modern MMO you pretty much follow the path unless you have some overpowered character or a group. You either fight a bunch of trash or trash and tough guy or a real tough guy that doesn't come close to the chosen one (you). I found even with never speaking bad group nobody really dies. You get loot every level or so, your character choices generally make you unable to gimp and everything is basically balanced in your favor level 1-whatever.
When I played WoW in Vanilla there was a large mixture of solo mobs and elite mobs in the in the open world area. I would often take a group quest and figure out a way to complete said quest in either solo or duo with another person who needed to complete the quest.
I've gone back to WoW recently and all open world content seemed to be solo mobs and solo quests now.
I do agree that quests and directed path makes it more difficult to challenge yourself though.
And this...
"Exact same thing happens with deaths in games; players will push themselves into harder and harder situations and as a result their subjectively experienced death rate will normalize."
That is just repetition of something that is already known to be false. Every metric you can look up about raid statistics, player achievements, and difficulty rankings shows that the players who vie for constantly harder situations and sit on the cusp of risk vs reward are a finite number of the player base. Most want a game to be a bit challenging, but comfortable foremost. When introducing rewards then the adage of hiring a lazy man comes to mind, because ultimately the user base is going to metagame and seek the easiest route to obtaining the rewards.
Sometimes the meta isn't really even needed any more, as the game basically is paced so that the challenge is never particularly heavy.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I was thinking of it in a more extended premise than just mobs. Like being able to create randomized story events and activities seeded around players (not directly on them) so that at any given moment they can wander into something new to do.
In the case of mobs themselves, this would mostly just be context sensitive spawning. It'd be tracking what types of units are prevalent in the area and any current territory maps and seed in enemy types that match up as patrols, camps, themed traps/ambushes, etc that can flesh out an area and make it more lively/populated and dynamic feeling than a bunch of static spawns.
As far as breaking botters, the point there would be to have flags on certain player behaviors such as unit grinding so that if a player is doing nothing but killing mobs for an abnormally long time, then the system can automatically scale or alter the spawns in the area to break the ability for that player to continue the same task unabated. It's a method that shouldn't impact legitimate players as they are more likely seeking the variety that's being offered.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
If you drive 25mph on a highway with a 70mph speed limit, don't blame the highway that your trip is too slow. It's not the highway's fault.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Difficulty is experienced subjectively by individuals.
A common mistake is assuming that a 50k hp mob designed to be fought by 5 players is actually harder than a 10k mob designed to be fought by one player. It's not. Each player still individually only has to contribute 10k damage to the fight over a certain period of time to win.
Deliberately fighting those elites solo doesn't make things harder either -- at least not in a way you couldn't achieve in modern MMORPGs by entering dungeons solo.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
For me, I want to see games get away from simply respawning the same boss in the same place to be beaten in the same way. That's why I listed a system where changes come into play constantly.
And I do believe that a dead Boss should stay dead. Let another MOB Boss move in to take it's place. Another thing the system I listed can do.
Once upon a time....
You'd still have an issue with other players showing up. But this is another place where I see Sandbox games with low power gaps as a plus. I'm not concerned if player group A meets a random encounter and because player group B happens to show up and together they have an easy time of it. New friends can be made that way, new stories that you remember and tell, etc. But when player group B is level 50 to your level 10 in typical MMO fashion, well, that's another story that's not nearly as memorable in a good way.
For botters, yeah, I see it. This would be an important aspect. But I think there needs more done too. Lets face it, it's nearly impossible to completely stop a really good bot programmer. But what you can do is reduce it's benefits. And I think it's possible to reduce those benefits enough that it doesn't matter all that much.
Randomization is a big part of that, in my mind. Your idea here is another, as I've thought of "random spawns" plenty, but "random events" is even better because it adds complexity that's better overcome by a thinking player.
Once upon a time....